


Caught Under the Mistletoe

by violia



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-02-27 18:34:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13254228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violia/pseuds/violia
Summary: “You know,” his mom says cautiously, “I always liked that Shane boy.”Ryan blinks. “…Yes?”“Jake shows me videos of you two messing around. He’s always been very polite when I’ve met him.” She clears her throat. “He’s a very lovely boy, Ryan.”And this moment, right here, is where Ryan goes wrong.---(Or, the one where Ryan makes a mistake, begs Shane to be his pretend boyfriend, and Shane, for some reason, says yes.)





	1. Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> Buckle up folks, the multi-chapter fic is here! This is a Christmas fic, so naturally I’m posting it in January. Sorry all. 
> 
> With thanks to S and T for beta.
> 
> This is a work of fiction.

When Ryan glances over at his buzzing phone and sees his mom’s face on the caller ID, he groans.

Don’t get him wrong – Ryan loves his mom a lot. She’s strong, smart and sassy, and raised Ryan to be the person he is now. Nothing compares to her incredible cooking or her warm, tight hugs; to Ryan, his mom is symbolic with _home_ and _love_ , and always will be.

But since he and Helen split, almost a year ago now, things have been different.

The thing is, Ryan’s okay. He truly is. There were a couple months there where he really wasn’t okay and he felt like he had no purpose and was going to die – but those feelings didn’t remain for long. He’s long passed that now, and while there is a part of him that will always love her, he doesn’t feel like his heart has been ripped into two anymore.

The real problem is that he hasn’t dated anyone since Helen, and that has his mom tiptoeing around him like she’s walking on eggshells, wary that one wrong remark will send him spiralling back into a pit of despair. And quite frankly? Ryan is getting sick of it.

“Hi, Mom,” he picks up the phone.

“Ryan!” she exclaims happily, and Ryan can’t resist the smile that spreads across his face. Damn, he should really call her more often than once a week, because he will never not miss her.

“How has your week been?” he asks, and then settles in as she launches into a recap of everything that’s happened since the previous Friday: she went shopping with some of her old work friends, she went to her salsa dancing class three times this week instead of two, and she’s volunteering at the local community centre this coming weekend to help cook food for the less fortunate. His mom has more of a social life than he does, and it’s ridiculous.

“Your father has hurt his elbow again for the third time this month,” she says disapprovingly.

“Has he been to the doctor?” Ryan asks, already knowing the answer; his stubborn dad is nothing if not predictable.

“No, he has not,” she says crossly. “Would you talk to him?”

“Me?” Ryan says, incredulous. “How am I going to convince him to go when you can’t?”

“He listens to you more than me,” she sniffs.

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think so,” Ryan laughs.

His mom clears her throat, and this is where Ryan braces himself.

“What have you been up to?” she asks, a bit softer.

“You know, the usual.” Ryan shrugs his shoulders before remembering that she can’t see him. “I’ve been researching, working on scripts, filming stuff.”

“And have you gone anywhere exciting?” she asks, a bit tentatively. “Perhaps with… someone?”

Ryan can read through the lines. “No, I haven’t met anyone, Mom,” he says, amused.

“Well, I just thought I’d ask,” she says loftily. “I want to know what’s going on with my son.”

That is Mom-code for being a busybody, and Ryan shakes his head fondly. “Well, not a lot really. I’ve mostly been at the office or at home. Oh, and on Monday we went up to Sacramento to film a haunted house for Unsolved. That was only for a night though.”

“Did you and Shane stay there overnight?” his mom asks.

“No, not this time, the owners wouldn’t let us.”

“Good,” she says approvingly. “You two are stupid to do things like that.”

“Yes, Mom,” Ryan rolls his eyes. He’s heard this lecture before.

There’s a pause in the conversation. Ryan gets the feeling that his mom is thinking about saying something, so he waits; and sure enough, after a few seconds:

“You know,” she says cautiously, “I always liked that Shane boy.”

Ryan blinks. “…Yes?”

“Jake shows me videos of you two messing around. He’s always been very polite when I’ve met him.” She clears her throat. “He’s a very lovely boy, Ryan.”

And this moment, right here, is where Ryan goes wrong.  

He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t say anything. And that’s exactly the point. Ryan is too busy doing a double-take; too busy being wrapped up in wondering _is my mom really hinting at me to get with my friend?_ to notice that he’s stopped speaking for far too long, and then – it’s too late.

His mom gasps, jarring him out of his thoughts. “Ryan!” she says breathlessly. “You don’t mean - you and Shane - ?”

“What?” Ryan says, bewildered, and then his mind connects the dots with punishing clarity. “No, Mom, no, hang on, it’s not like that – ”

“It’s not?” she says, and she sounds so crestfallen, and Ryan stops.

Obviously, the logical thing to do here is say no. Ryan knows his mom wants him to be happy, and lying to her about who he’s dating is not going to help anything in the long run. But there’s always been a part of Ryan that is inherently illogical – and when he thinks about how happy his mom will be to hear that he’s dating again, that he’s with someone who she _approves of_ no less, it would certainly ease her worrying about him. He’s already been stupid enough to make her think they’re together; he may as well go the full mile and just say it.

The more he thinks about it, the more it seems like a solid plan in his mind. He can always tell her that they’ve broken up in a month or two - nothing serious, they’re still friends, just a small fling. So instead of doing what he should do and telling his mom _no, sorry, Shane and I aren’t dating_ , he takes a deep breath and says, “actually, Mom, it is exactly like that. Shane and I are… like that.”

“Ryan!” she exclaims, and he sighs, suddenly relieved, because he’ll take a shout of happiness over a solemn and tentative “how are you doing?” any day.

“That’s wonderful,” his mom continues, and Ryan smiles. And then she says, “You must bring him to the family Christmas dinner.”

“What?” Ryan starts, smile wiped off his face. “No, Mom, no he can’t -"

When Ryan hangs up the phone two minutes later, his mom has somehow made him promise to not only bring Shane to the family dinner in three weeks’ time, but also to arrive two hours early to help with the cooking.

He stares at his phone and mutters, “oh, fuck.”

* * *

 It’s the beginning of December, and winter is making itself known in Los Angeles, and Ryan is not happy about it.

Sure, it’s picture perfect. The trees are leaf-less and spindly, stretching up to the sky in all their naked glory, some clothed in twinkling fairy lights that serve as a thrilling reminder of the upcoming Christmas celebrations. Shorts and singlets are replaced by jeans and coats, and everyone walks around with a spring in their step, because December in LA is cold enough to be classed as winter, but not cold enough for anyone to want to wrap themselves in heated blankets and pray for death.

That is, unless you’re Ryan Bergara, who fucking hates winter. Winter for Ryan means freezing your ass off, no matter how thick your jeans are; it means five minutes after you buy your coffee, it’s already close to lukewarm; it means that he’s shivering and wishing that he were anywhere else when he huddles in a corner of the Buzzfeed office carpark and tells Shane that he made his mom think they were dating and then _actively confirmed it_.

“What the fuck?” Shane says loudly, his eyebrows scrunched together in bewilderment.

“Shh, shh,” Ryan hushes him, furtively glancing around to make sure they haven’t caught the attention of anyone nearby. He’s keeping on guard - anyone could be down here and overhear them, and Ryan really doesn’t want this news spreading around.

Because it’s not news, so much as it’s Ryan’s fumbling idiocy. And anyone in that office would jump at the chance to laugh at Ryan (or anyone, really), like the caring motherfuckers that they are.

“Just go over it again,” Shane is saying, his hands on his hips and the toes of one foot tapping incessantly against the ground. He’s only wearing a light jumper and Ryan is mystified, because seriously, it must be less than 50 degrees down here. “What did you tell your mom?”

Ryan winces. “That we’re dating?”

“And why would you tell her that?” Shane asks, looking like he has no idea of what’s going on. “Is it a joke? Are you going to pull a prank on her?”

“No…” Ryan says hesitantly.

Shane keeps looking at him with that muddled expression. “Well then what? I’m a bit confused, here,” and isn’t that the understatement of the century.

Ryan shuts his eyes and, resigned, takes in a deep breath.

“I didn’t mean to,” he starts, flicking his eyes open to look at Shane. “But my mom and I were talking and – somehow – she got the idea that we were together. And I was an absolute idiot and said the wrong stuff and now she fully believes it.”

“How easy is it to say ‘no’?” Shane throws his arms up accusingly. “The word is two letters long, Ryan, even you could get it – say this with me: ‘ _No_ , Mom, Shane and I are not together, where would you get that idea’ – ”

“Look, can we not talk about it?” Ryan asks a bit desperately. To his chagrin, he feels his cheeks heating up. Apparently, no amount of cold weather can keep Ryan’s face from turning the colour of a tomato when he’s embarrassed. “It’s not a big deal - I can just tell her that we’ve broken up after Christmas, or something, but we’re still good friends and everything’s fine, etcetera.”

Shane eyes him quizzically. “Why after Christmas? Why not right now?”

This is what Ryan was afraid of. He bites his lip, braces himself, and then blurts out, “Because I told her we’d both go to the family Christmas dinner.”

“What?” Shane bursts out, even louder than before.

“I know, I’m stupid, I get it!” Ryan exclaims.

“I’m going home for Christmas, Ryan!” Shane says, waving his arms around in a gesture that would surely convey his anger and annoyance if he didn’t look so much like one of those blow-up tube men that stand in front of car dealerships being blown around by the wind.

“It’s not on Christmas Day,” Ryan explains. “It’s a few nights before. It’s so that some of my family can get together, because we all won’t be together on Christmas Day, because of visiting other family or partner’s families or whatever.”

Shane looks very hesitant.

“Come on, man,” Ryan pleads. “I really don’t want to disappoint her. Please? It’s one night of talking to my mom and eating good food. We don’t really need to do anything different.”

There’s a moment where everything hangs in the balance – where Shane pauses, staring at Ryan’s face as though he’s finally lost the plot, and Ryan stares back beseechingly. Shane could say no. Then Ryan would be really fucked.

He could say no – but he doesn’t.

“Fine,” Shane rolls his eyes, and Ryan breathes out a sigh he didn’t know he was holding. “One holiday dinner, I guess I can manage that. For the record, though, you’re an idiot.”

“I know,” Ryan says, laughing at himself in part-amusement and part-relief. Shane picks up his bag from where it’s been sitting on the bonnet of his car and they both make their way towards the elevator.

“You owe me for this, big time,” Shane warns him, pressing the button.

“Yeah, whatever,” Ryan scoffs, and Shane elbows him in the ribs.

* * *

When Ryan walks into work the next morning, he’s feeling pretty good. Nothing bad has happened. No one else in the office found out about his blunder. He and Shane don’t have to worry about a thing until that Christmas dinner – and even then, that won’t be a big deal. They’re golden.

Or so he believes, until he sees Steven standing next to his desk, staring at him accusingly.

“Dude, what the hell?” Steven says, his arms outstretched. “You didn’t tell me you and Shane were together!”

“We’re – what?” Ryan shakes his head confusedly. “What the fuck, we’re not – where did you hear that?”

Steven crosses his arms over his chest. “Dude, don’t lie to me, okay, your mom told me.”

“What?” Ryan says again, and then, “oh, shit,” because he completely forgot that since that one dinner last year when Steven and Ryan’s mom huddled in the corner of a booth for two hours talking about the meaning of life and shit, Steven’s been pretty much adopted into the Bergara family and spends an hour a week talking to Ryan’s mom on the phone.

(Whenever Ryan mentions to his mom that this is sort of, y’know, weird, his mom just stares at him imploringly and says, “His parents live on the other side of the _country,_ ” which doesn’t exactly explain anything but makes Ryan pause for long enough for his mom to change the topic. Moms are sneaky like that.)

“It’s not like that,” Ryan says, a bit desperately. “You weren’t supposed to know – ”

“Oh fuck,” Steven’s eyes widen, “is it supposed to be a secret?”

“Uh…” Ryan trails off. He has absolutely no idea what he’s supposed to say, here.

“Fuck, I’m sorry dude,” Steven starts, before being cut off by Eugene, who rounds the corner of the desk aisle, spots Ryan and shouts, “Ryan Bergara, I better see you and your beau Shane at the holiday party!”

“We’re not - it’s not – ” Ryan glances helplessly between a grinning Eugene and Steven. Steven just looks at him apologetically, and Ryan sighs, runs a hand over his face, and for the second time in as many days mutters, “fuck.”

* * *

Because he’s a weird freak of nature, Shane eats what he calls a ‘second breakfast’ around ten a.m. every morning.

“You’re like a hobbit,” Ryan had told him, way back when he was first getting to know Shane and did not understand the sheer amounts of food required to keep the Sasquatch running.

“Yes, exactly,” Shane had said, and Ryan could have teased him about it for longer, but at the last moment thought better of it and instead made Shane give him some of his food. Hobbits may be small humans with big hairy feet and they probably smelled a bit, but they knew what they were talking about when it came to mealtimes.

So Ryan knows exactly where to find him that morning; and when he walks into the office kitchen and sees Shane’s eyes shooting daggers at him, he knows he’s well and truly fucked.

“Ryan!” Shane says loudly, beckoning him over with an accusing glint in his eyes. “You’re just the person I want to see. Jen here has just told me something _truly_ fascinating – ”

“I was so excited when I found out,” Jen grins up at Ryan, her genuine smile a stark contrast to Shane’s deliberate and over-the-top calmness.

“Jen has invited us to the Christmas party, Ryan,” Shane tells him. “Us. Together. Because we are _dating_. Did you know – ”

“Yeah, look, we need to talk about that,” Ryan says quickly. He fists a hand in Shane’s shirt and yanks, dragging him out of the kitchen and towards the entry corridor.

“Ryan – ” Shane sounds affronted, stumbling as Ryan pulls him along. “What – ”

“Shut up for a minute,” Ryan says. He leads him out of the Buzzfeed office space and down the outside walkway, away from the elevators, ignoring Shane’s subdued grumbling. It’s only when he reaches the end of the walkway, out of earshot of anyone else, that he finally relinquishes his hold on Shane and speaks.

“Dude, I know, you’re mad,” Ryan begins. “I’m sorry. I really did not expect anyone here to find out – ”

“Find out what? That we’re dating?” Shane scoffs. “Newsflash, Ryan: we’re not. But everyone here suddenly thinks we are, one day after you – for some reason that I will never be able to fathom – told your mom that we are thing. Together. An _item_.”

“I know!” Ryan exclaims. “Look, I know it was dumb. It was just supposed to be this little thing. But I forgot that Steven talks to my mom a lot – ”

“Steven talks to your mom?” Shane asks, momentarily puzzled.

“It’s a long story. But Steven must have talked to my mom after I told her, and she told him, and now he’s gone and told everyone, because nothing can ever stay a fucking secret in this office.” Bitterness laces itself through his last words, though Ryan knows that he can’t really blame office gossip for getting him into this godforsaken mess. He got himself into this shitstorm, and now he has to deal with it.

“So, okay, you’re an idiot,” Shane says, as though he’s settling a known matter. “Fine. We can just tell everyone that it’s not true.”

“I…” Ryan trails off, and Shane groans, tilts his head up to the sky and says, “Fuck, Ryan, no.”

“Just hear me out!” Ryan jumps in quickly. “It won’t be difficult – ”

“I am not pretending to be your long-term boyfriend!” Shane exclaims.

“That’s what you already agreed to do!” Ryan protests.

“To your family!” Shane huffs. “For one day. Not to the entire world, for three weeks.”

He runs a hand through his hair in frustration. The gesture makes his brown wisps stretch up from his scalp at odd angles, and Ryan has to remind himself that laughing at him in the middle of an argument is probably not the best way to get Shane to do what Ryan wants. 

Instead of giggling at Shane's stupid hair, Ryan says, “Well, we can’t exactly go back in there and say ‘sorry guys, just a prank, we’re actually not together’.”

“Uh, yes we can,” Shane says, as though it’s obvious. “We can go back there and say exactly that.”

“No we can’t, Shane, Steven is there,” Ryan shakes his head. “And if Steven finds out that we’re not dating, he’ll tell my mom, and I’ll get a call this afternoon from my outraged mother, demanding to know why I told her I’m dating someone when I’m not.”

“And remind me, Ryan, why did you tell your mother that you were dating me?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Ryan bursts out, frustrated. “Listen, can you just do this for me? I can’t have her find out. She’ll get mad and then revert back to how she has been for the past year, all quiet and careful and worried about me. I don’t want her worrying about me. I’m fine.”

“Telling her that you’re dating me will make her stop worrying about you?” Shane asks, brow furrowing in confusion.

“Telling her that I’ve started dating again, no matter who it is, will make her stop worrying about me.”

“Wait,” Shane says slowly. “Does that mean you haven’t dated anyone since you and Helen split? At all?”

“No,” Ryan says, and then shakes his head. “Look, what does it matter? I just need her to relax about me a bit, and not find out that we aren’t together.”

“Three weeks, Ryan,” Shane says, hesitant. “Everyone here will expect us to be all, I don’t know, lovey-dovey. They’re expecting us to go to the holiday party. There will be _joint costumes_ involved.”

“This is a workplace, they’re not gonna expect us to be all over each other at all,” Ryan says quickly. “We don’t have to pretend we live with each other, and we don’t even have to talk to each other, except for all the normal stuff we already do. The only place where we have to be couple-y is the holiday party, and that’s one evening.”

He looks at Shane beseechingly, and Shane studies him for a moment. There’s a moment of silence as Shane’s eyes roam over Ryan’s face, before he sighs wearily.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Ryan breaths out a sigh of his own, in relief. “Thank you,” he says breathlessly. “I know this is stupid, and I promise I’ll never do something as dumb as this again – ”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Shane rolls his eyes. “As if. You’re Ryan Bergara, you’re constantly doing and thinking stupid shit. It’s in your nature.”

“Fuck you,” Ryan says, but the familiar banter calms him as he and Shane start walking back down the hallway towards the office door.

Of course, that calmness lasts all of two seconds before Shane tilts his head over to Ryan and says, “You do realise you dragging me out here by my shirt made us look even more suspicious, right?”

“What? I was _barely_ touching you,” Ryan argues, his cheeks heating up.

“Nope, you had quite a firm grip on shirt,” Shane muses. “I wonder what they think we’re doing out here?”

They both look at each other for a moment, eyebrows raised.

Then Ryan rolls his eyes and says “Shut up, Shane,” and Shane throws his head back in laughter, and Ryan braces himself for a month of pretending to be Shane Madej’s boyfriend. 


	2. Miscommunications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a premiere party, a holiday party, and matching costumes.

It starts out fine, at first.

Ryan is surprised at how fine everything really is. There’s no awkward tension when he and Shane arrive to work the next day. There’s no sudden changes in attitude – Shane is still hilariously irritating, and really, Ryan might actually consider becoming Shane’s boyfriend if it meant he would become less of an asshole.

But Shane doesn’t stop being his weird, gangly, funny self, and Ryan doesn’t stop rolling his eyes in exasperation, and everything is working out to be pretty good.

That is, until Eugene walks up to Ryan and says, “Can you and Shane be in a video?”

It’s nearly lunchtime on a cold, rainy day, and Ryan has spent his whole morning thinking about the warm, hearty soup leftovers he has waiting in the office kitchen. He actually got off his ass and cooked food last night – real food, not eggs on toast or two minute noodles – and he’s slowly realising that cooking is a) a way to get cheap, delicious food, and b) actually not that difficult if he puts his mind to it. At the risk of sounding like his mother, Ryan thinks that slow cookers are _incredible_.

“Ryan?” Eugene asks, and Ryan realises that he’s let himself become distracted by his lunch, again. It’s not his fault - he skipped breakfast this morning, and his brain doesn’t function well without food.

“Yeah, sorry man,” Ryan rubs a hand across his eyes, willing his brain to get back online. “What’s up?”

“I want you and Shane to be in a video,” Eugene repeats, leaning his leg against the edge of Ryan’s desk.

“When are you filming?” Ryan asks, already trying to visualise his calendar and checking when he’s free.

“Tomorrow,” Eugene says. “I know it’s a bit late notice, but to be fair, I only found out that you two are together a few days ago.”

“Wait,” Ryan starts. His brain may be slow, but it connects the dots soon enough. “What sort of video do you want us to be in?”

“It’s about intimacy in couples,” Eugene tells him, and goddamn him, he looks positively excited. “So you’ll be doing things like trust falls, blindfolded stuff, - ”

“Eugene, I don’t think – ” Ryan says, but Eugene steamrollers over him.

“And then there’s going to be this kissing exercise, where you’ll kiss each other and then – ”

“Woah, woah, nope,” Ryan cuts in loudly. “Absolutely not. No way.”

“Oh,’ Eugene stutters, eyes wide. “Dude, I just thought – ”

“You thought wrong, okay? Seriously, Eugene, what the fuck,” and shit, Ryan’s actually angry, and Eugene is standing there looking really confused. Ryan realises, suddenly, that he’s acting as though he and Shane aren’t in a relationship. Which, they’re not, but everyone thinks they are, and he needs to remember that.

“Uh,” he says, glancing around, grasping for an excuse. “Everything is - things are still pretty new, y’know? With me and Shane. I don’t want the whole world to see me… kissing him. Yet.”

“Right,” Eugene says slowly, backing away. “Sorry, dude, I didn’t think.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Ryan waves him off and turns back to his desk. He feels like banging his forehead into the keyboard, but that would draw him even more attention.

Seriously, though. Him and Shane? In a _couples_ video? That would shape up to be the most awkward experience of Ryan’s entire life. He can see it now: neither of them would know what to say. Shane would sit there, gangly limbs tucked up under a too-small table, and Ryan would probably start babbling about whatever came to his mind. And Jesus, Eugene wanted them to _kiss_? That wouldn’t work, period - Shane is far too tall. Ryan would need to stand on his toes, or maybe a small box, and both their heads would be at awkward angles, craning to make their lips meet.

Though – Ryan has seen Shane’s arms. He looks skinny because he’s so tall, but his shoulders are deceptively strong. His biceps could easily handle the strain of pulling Ryan towards him with two hands on his waist, lifting him up to make the angle easier on their necks as their lips pressed together. It’d be smooth, warm and dry, their lips moving softly, slowly, tentatively. Perhaps Shane would tighten his arms around Ryan’s waist; perhaps Ryan would slide his hands up Shane’s shoulders, curving them around to the base of his neck and carding fingers through Shane’s hair –

Ryan blinks. Then he shakes himself forcefully, physically shutting down that train of thought.

It’s been a while, he reasons with himself. He needs to get back out on the dating scene. He needs to get laid. And he is definitely, positively, _not_ getting laid by Shane.

With that settled, he locks his computer and gets out of his chair. Ryan needs some fucking lunch already, otherwise who knows what other batshit stuff his brain is going to come up with.

* * *

 

Someone, somewhere, thought that putting Ryan and Shane’s desks next to each other was a good idea, and one day Ryan would like to have a quiet word with that person, because they need to understand the trauma he has endured.

Having Shane as a desk-mate is infuriating. While Ryan practices the subtle art of organised chaos, Shane is just… organised. His keyboard and mouse are always lined up neatly, his Poe Dameron bobblehead is always clearly visible, and all of his pens actually live in his pen holder. Shane’s notes are always arranged neatly in a notepad, whereas Ryan’s desk is not so much a desk as it is a place where sticky notes can roam wild and free. Ryan’s desk looks like a bomb hit it; Shane’s desk looks like a fucking Ikea display, and it’s annoying.

…Okay, maybe Ryan is the bad desk-mate, here. That’s beside the point.

The point is, he and Shane sit next to each other, and it’s for this reason that he knows Shane has been out of the office for the day. Ryan has made the most of it: it’s been quiet, he’s been productive, and he’s even let some of his stuff migrate onto the desk next to him, in spite of Poe Dameron bobbling at him disapprovingly. But when a bag is suddenly dropped onto said desk, he knows that his sweet time to himself is over.

“Hi,” Ryan greets Shane, quickly moving the various pens, notebooks and charging cables off of Shane’s desk before he can have a bitch at him for it again.

“Are you mad at me?” Shane asks, pulling his chair out.

“What? Why would I be mad at you?” Ryan asks. He’s back to peering at his computer screen, distracted by the voiceover script he’s editing.

“Well, Eugene said something about you being mad,” Shane corrects himself. “I just assumed it was at me. Because you can never fail to find some reason to be annoyed at me.”

“Fuck you,” Ryan says, albeit absently. He sighs and leans away from the screen, rubbing his eyes; this script is doing his fucking head in. “Eugene was trying to get us to be in his video about couples’ intimacy.”

“What did you say?”

Ryan’s lips twist into something that could be rueful, but isn’t quite. “I told him no, definitely not, and also, fuck off.”

Shane glances up from where he’s unpacking his backpack. “You said that to Eugene?”

“Well, I didn’t tell him to fuck off, but I was in a pissy mood,” Ryan pulls a face. “I don’t really regret it though.”

Shane snorts at him and, his bag unpacked, places it on the floor. “What excuse did you give him?” he asks, straightening back up and swirling his chair around so he’s facing Ryan. “He would have wanted to know. Stickybeak Eugene needs to know everything in this office.”

“I said that it was too early in the relationship for the whole world to know that we were together,” Ryan says with a shrug.

 “Good answer.”

“Yeah, well, it made sense,” Ryan runs a hand through his hair and blinks his eyes open; it’s been a long day, what with this script and this thing with Eugene, and he wants to go home. “And Eugene wanted us to be kissing and stuff.”

“What? Eugene wanted us to kiss in the video?” Shane asks, and Ryan blinks to attention, because Shane sounds slightly alarmed.  

“Yeah, it was all about intimacy, and I guess he wanted to test that? I honestly don’t know,” Ryan shakes his head, hoping that his dismissiveness works to dispel whatever Shane’s worrying about.

“Well,” Shane says, stilted. He coughs a couple of times, clearing his throat, eyes for once not on Ryan’s but instead staring down at his fidgeting fingers. “That’s – good, then. That you said no. Because I definitely - definitely don’t want to kiss you.”

“Yeah buddy, I got no real desire to kiss you either,” Ryan says, making sure his voice remains casual. It’s not really a lie. That weird fantasy doesn’t count - he just hasn’t had sex in a while. A _long_ while.

“Right,” Shane says after a pause. “I’m just - I need to go and grab something from the printer.”

“Okay?” Ryan says, but Shane’s already gone, speeding out of the room.

* * *

 

 “Holy shit,” Shane says, a little breathless.

“Ah, hell,” Ryan groans, because he sees what Shane’s looking at, and he knows he’s in for an insufferable night.

They’re at the premiere for the new season of Ashly’s show. It’s being held in a nice, swanky hotel, and through the dimmed lights Ryan can see a whole heap of round tables with people sitting at the chairs or milling around the refreshments area, chatting and making nice. There’s a big screen at the back of the room, where he supposes they’ll watch the first few episodes of the show. Shane and Ryan have just gotten out of their shared Uber and made their way into the room, and of course, Shane immediately cast his eyes around for the tables of food; but when he found them, he was as Ryan had feared, distracted by the –

“Helium balloons!” Shane exclaims.

Ryan sighs. Shane’s passions are as innocent as they are niche, and Ryan is still deciding whether he finds it irritating or endearing that Shane can find joy in such small things. 

(Spoiler: he thinks it’s pretty fucking endearing. Though he is loathe to admit it aloud.)

“Coming here was a brilliant idea,” Shane is saying. “I am definitely going to kidnap some of those balloons. Ryan, you will be my partner in crime.”

“Nope, come on, we have to go and congratulate Ashly,” Ryan says, pulling at Shane’s arm. “You can inhale helium later.”

Shane trails away from the balloons reluctantly, glancing at them over his shoulder, as though they might disappear while he and Ryan walk away. 

“Jesus, you’re like a child,” Ryan rolls his eyes. He realises he’s still holding Shane, still leading him into the thrum of people, and he lets go quickly.

“It’s fun, Ryan! You breathe in the air and suddenly your voice is completely different. It’s hilarious.” Shane seems oblivious to the people around him, which is just as well; they seem just as oblivious as him. The music is a bit loud, and everyone is talking to everyone else, so Ryan has to lean his head in close to Shane’s to be heard.

“Didn’t someone die from inhaling helium?” Ryan asks.

“Ehh, who cares?” Shane waves a hand, nearly hitting someone on the shoulder in the process.

“Who cares? Shane! You could die from helium, and you think it’s funny?”

“Hell yeah I think it’s funny! Can you imagine the death certificate? Death by helium. Death by _balloon_.”

Ryan snorts out a giggle, unable to help himself. “Jesus Christ.”

“Can you imagine being in the afterlife and talking to, like, all these noble soldiers? And being like ‘how’d you die?’ and the soldiers would say ‘I died by, like, saving people from a bomb attack’, and then you have to look them in the eye and say ‘I died because I breathed in a balloon.” Shane can barely finish his sentence, he’s laughing too hard.

“You think of the weirdest things,” Ryan says, and Shane looks down at him and grins.

Eventually, they find Ashly and congratulate her on her show. It’s a good night. Everyone sits down and watches the season premiere and it’s a huge success – the whole crowd loves it. The cheering when the credits roll transitions seamlessly into the second half of the evening, which is considerably more rowdy than the first. It’s a good, workplace-friendly kind of rowdy, though, the one where everyone drinks, but not too much; everyone parties, but not too hard.

Shane and Ryan don’t spend the whole evening together. Surprisingly, Ryan forgets that he and Shane are supposed to be dating. He doesn’t feel like all eyes are on him; he doesn’t feel the need to stay near Shane and keep up appearances.

Instead, he spends a lot of it talking to Ella and her girlfriend Hannah about the projects they’re all producing, and Shane spends a lot of the evening with Sara, talking about God knows what. They dated a while back, before realising that they were better as friends; but the breakup did nothing to diminish their friendship, that connection forged through their endearing, shared weirdness.

“Ryan!” Steven comes up to him at one point, gripping his shoulder, “I’ve got a great idea,” which is how Ryan ends up squeezing himself into a photo booth with Shane, Ella, Hannah, Steven and his girlfriend. It is small fit – Ryan, Shane and Steven are standing shoulder-to-shoulder at the back, while the others are crouched in front of them, but they’re making it work.

“I think I’m going to suffocate in here,” Shane says.

“Would you rather suffocate from your fucking helium balloons?” Ryan jibes.

Shane’s eyes light up, and he makes a move to try and get out of the booth. “I should bring some in here – ”

“No!” everyone in the booth shouts, pulling him back.

“Alright, alright, Jesus,” Shane grumbles, and Ryan pats his shoulder mockingly.

“Okay, first photo, let’s just make a boring nice one and get that out of the way,” Ella suggests, and everyone puts on their best smiles.

“Ryan pulled a face,” Shane says after the shutter goes off.

“No I didn’t!” Ryan protests, but he’s grinning, and Shane is eyeing him off knowingly, so Ryan turns to face the camera. “Okay, funny one next?”

Hannah and Ella put their heads together, Steven leans down to his girlfriend and pokes his tongue out, and Ryan pulls a different face as the camera goes off.

“Okay, another funny one,” Ella says, and before Ryan knows it he’s being pulled into a headlock.

“Hey!” he says, and Shane just grins down at him, saying, “This is punishment for ruining our nice photo.”

“I’m copying you,” Hannah says, and quickly pulls Ella into a headlock as well.

“I feel like people are going to see this photo and think we’re promoting abuse,” Steven says, as his girlfriend pulls him into a headlock with a mischievous smirk.

The shutter goes off, and Shane lets Ryan go, and Ryan pretends he didn’t spend that entire time thinking about how his back was pressed flush against Shane’s chest.

“Okay, last one, what do you want to do?” Steven asks.

“I have the perfect idea,” Ella says, putting her hands out to quieten everyone in the booth. “We’re all couples in here. We should all kiss each other!”

“Aww, that will be so cute!” Steven’s girlfriend coos. Ryan blinks.

“Okay, the shutter’s going off in five,” Hannah says. “Four, three - “

Ryan looks at Shane with wide eyes, rooted to the spot. He doesn’t have time to think – he has no idea what to do.

“Two, one - “

Before he knows what’s happening, Shane has a hand on Ryan’s cheek and is bending down to press their lips together just as the shutter goes off. It’s barely a kiss – their lips only touch for a second, maybe two - but it’s enough for Ryan to feel a thrill in his stomach. It’s enough for him to catalogue the feeling of Shane’s warm lips on his before Shane pulls away.

He hears the others cheer, hears them start to walk out of the booth, but Ryan finds that he still can’t move, can’t drag his eyes away from Shane’s.

“Oh,” he says, under his breath.

Shane just looks at him, then darts his eyes over to the booth entrance, then back to Ryan’s.

“Come on,” he says, equally quiet, and grabs - he _grabs Ryan’s hand_ \- and pulls him out of the booth and towards the others.

“These are adorable!” Ella is gushing, all of them poring over the thin strip of photographs. “I was so right, that last photo is so cute. Shane, look,” and she holds out the photos so he and Ryan can see.

Ella’s right. From an objective point of view they do look adorable, all of them kissing their respective partners. But Ryan can’t stop looking at him and Shane, and particularly, Shane’s hand. That damned hand that suddenly found itself on Ryan’s cheek. Ryan wants to lift his own fingers and place them in the same spot. He feels like it means something, that hand, but he doesn’t know what. Doesn’t know how to put it into words.

Instead, he just forces a smile and says, “This is pretty cute.”

“Are you going to take photos and send them to everyone?” Shane asks.

“Yes, oh my god, let’s go do that right now,” Ella says, and leads them off towards a table.

Ryan and Shane don’t follow. Ryan finds that he’s having trouble looking at Shane, which is ridiculous. He musters the courage to glance up and their eyes lock, both of them looking as nervous as the other. Ryan finds that, just like before in the booth, he has no idea what to do or what to say.

Luckily for him, Shane clears his throat and speaks first.

“We had to,” he says slowly, unsure. “I mean, it would have been weird if we didn’t, right?”

And Ryan sighs in relief, because it seems like he and Shane are on the same page. “Yeah, of course,” he says, nodding his head up and down. “It would have been odd if we didn’t. And we don’t want my mom finding out. That we’re not together. So we had to.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees.

“So we’ll just – ?”

“We don’t need to talk about it again,” Shane says quickly.

“Yep,” Ryan nods his head again, almost vigorously. Shit, he’s nodding too much. He must look like an idiot, but he can’t stop himself – his nerves are shot.

“Yep,” Shane repeats. They stand there in awkward silence, back to staring at anything except each other.

“Shane!” Ryan hears from behind him, and Shane breathes an audible sigh of relief.

“Jen wants me,” he says, motioning towards where she must be. “I’m just gonna – ”

“Yeah, of course, go,” Ryan nods, stepping aside so Shane can move past. He watches as he walks away, then looks down again, trying to collect himself.

Eventually, he raises his head. Ryan sees a table of champagne glasses and makes a beeline for it. When he gets there he grabs a glass, pours it full of champagne, and drains it in one go.

* * *

Ryan wakes up the following morning feeling far more hungover than he’d planned to be.

“Fuck off,” he groans at his alarm, which is blaring at him obnoxiously. He reaches a hand out and feels clumsily around the bedside table, and when he finally touches his phone he lifts his head up just enough to see where to click the snooze button before rolling over and shutting his eyes again. Fuck work, fuck everything - Ryan’s head hurts way too much right now for him to even think about dealing with the world.

He lets his mind wander, lets the beckon of sleep draw him back into its clutches; but before he can, his phone goes off. It’s a message chime, not an alarm, but it pulls Ryan back to waking all the same. He seriously considers ignoring it, but he really does need to get up for work, no matter what his hungover brain says.

He stretches his arms up above his head and yawns, relishing in the bones popping down his spine. Then he tries to sit up – and promptly lies back down again when the world starts spinning. Okay, so, a couple more minutes before his body is ready to be vertical. That’s cool.

He leans over, grabs his phone, and squints at the screen where he’s holding it above his head. The message is from Shane.

Immediately, Ryan’s thoughts are sent back to last night. The party. The photo booth. The kiss. Against his will, his stomach flips excitedly as he remembers how Shane’s lips had felt on his. It had been nice to be so close to someone again, to feel a warm body against his, if only for a moment.

The warm flush running through his body is abruptly cooled, however, when he remembers what happened after the kiss – how awkward it was between them. Neither of them knew what to say, what to do, and Ryan wonders if he made a mistake. But technically, he didn’t do anything – Shane was the one who kissed him. Shane kept his word. He helped Ryan continue this stupid ruse, making everyone believe they were together.

But at what cost? He and Shane have a great friendship, it’s true. Somehow, Shane has become one of Ryan’s closest friends. He makes Ryan laugh, makes him want to scream and tear his hair out sometimes, but ultimately they _get_ each other. They have a close bond, one that springs from close proximity, a mutual understanding, a mutual respect. And Ryan is realising, more and more, that he does not ever want to do anything that could jeopardise this friendship, because it’s one of the best he’s got.

Staring at his phone screen, he unlocks it with his finger, apprehensive. What does Shane have to say to him that can’t wait until work? His anxiety is allayed, though, when he sees the message.

_How’s your head?_ Shane has texted him.

Ryan snorts, and immediately regrets it: it’s far too loud, far too abrasive for his pounding skull to deal with.

_Sore_ , he texts back, _Text quieter, please._

_Turn your phone volume down._

_YOU turn it down._

_Ah. I see we have grumpy hungover Ryan today._

Ryan rolls his eyes, then immediately regrets that too.

_Fuck you_ , he replies, but his stomach feels settled. Shane isn’t ignoring him, nor is he angry or upset or pulling out of this stupid fake boyfriend thing he agreed to. He’s good. They’re good. Probably.

He feels calmer as he gets ready for work that morning, even though his actions are frantic as he tries to get himself together to make it into the office in time. He has a meeting this morning that he can’t miss, and he’s already running pitifully late. He can barely stop to put on a belt, let alone swing by his favourite coffee shop as he usually does each morning.

His stomach tightens again when he enters the office and knows that he’s about to see Shane, but he pushes that aside. Instead, Ryan focuses on ignoring the pounding in his head, the aching in his body as he makes his way over to his desk. He really hadn’t planned on drinking that much last night, not until… well.

A glance at his watch tells him he has two minutes until the meeting is supposed to begin; enough time to drop his bag on his chair, grab his laptop out, and run. As he approaches his desk, though, his feet slow to a stop. Shane is sitting at his desk, working on his computer; but Ryan only has eyes for the tall, steaming takeaway coffee cup that’s sitting right in the middle of his own desk.

“What is this?” he asks, his voice croaky, deeper than usual due to misuse. He takes the last few steps up to his chair and stares down at the coffee cup.

“Ryan, I think you will find that that is coffee,” Shane says matter-of-factly, not looking away from his screen.

Ryan eyes the familiar logo on the cup. “It’s coffee from my favourite shop,” he says slowly.

“Yes,” Shane says.

“Is it my favourite blend?”

“Yes,” Shane says.

“Did you…” Ryan shakes his head, then grimaces at the pain the movement brings. “Did you get it for me?”

“Maybe,” Shane says coyly, still not looking at him.

With one hesitant hand, Ryan reaches out and takes the cup. He has been mourning this lost coffee all morning, knowing he would have to wait until later to get some caffeine into him. He had no idea how he was going to look even half-alive during the meeting, but now, he doesn’t have to worry. Wordlessly, he pulls the cup to his lips, takes a sip, and groans.

“Jesus Christ,” he says breathlessly, eyes closed in bliss, “I feel like a new person already.”

Beside him, he hears Shane cough. “Haven’t you got a meeting to go to?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” Ryan tosses his backpack on the desk and unzips it, pulling out his laptop. He takes one more sip of the coffee and smiles, feeling his body and brain starting to fully wake up.

His eyes glance sideways and he sees Shane looking at him.

“Thanks,” Ryan says, and the smile he gives Shane is tentative but genuine, and Shane is smiling back softly, and Ryan doesn’t know what to think, so he doesn’t at all.

* * *

The following week is one of the busiest Ryan’s had all year, and it’s all of his own volition.

He starts the weekend off strong. All those projects he’s started around the apartment and never finished? Well, now is when he gets them done. He assembles the Ikea desk that’s been sitting in a flatpack at the foot of his bed for three months. He gets all the photos he’d had printed of his friends and family probably half a year ago and finally clips them up onto his living room wall (because he doesn’t care how many teenage girls are doing it on Tumblr, okay, hanging up string and using cute clips to attach photographs looks awesome). Then he cleans the whole apartment, top to bottom, leaving everything spotless: he dusts, mops, and scrubs, even cleaning the ceiling fans.

When the work week starts up again, he hits that even harder. He absolutely throws himself into scriptwriting and location scouting and researching. The only time he takes a break is to eat food, travel, sleep, or go to the gym. His gym pass has never been used so frequently, and, as Ryan stretches his aching muscles, he feels pretty guilty about it.

But everything he does, doesn’t work. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t distract himself from thinking about Shane.

That stupid, tall, annoying idiot is all Ryan can think about. It’s like that brief, random kiss opened the floodgates of his mind, and he’s now powerless to stop his brain thinking about crazier and crazier shit. That weird fantasy he’d had? About him and Shane? Was not even the _least_ of his worries. Now he finds himself plagued by mental images of Shane’s long, lean body. When Ryan lies down in bed and drags his hand over his cock, he thinks about Shane being next to him, pressed along his side, his hand the one jerking Ryan off as he nuzzles his ear, kisses down Ryan’s throat, sucks at the juncture where neck meets shoulder.

But the really scary part, the thing that has him burrowing furiously into work to distract himself, is that he’s not just thinking about Shane’s body. If it were that, it would be easy – Ryan could just jerk himself off and that would be it.

But Ryan’s thinking about so much more than just sex. He’s thinking about Shane, the person, the human being who is one of Ryan’s best friends. Shane, who goes out of his way to tease Ryan and start arguments, but knows when to stop. Shane, who buys Ryan coffee and does stupidly nice things just because Ryan asks, just because Shane thinks about him and cares. Shane, whose smile makes the corner of his eyes crinkle in a way that is the most beautiful thing Ryan has ever seen.

It’s a disaster, and Ryan doesn’t know what to do. He wants to stop thinking about all of this, wants to go back to just being Shane’s best friend; but he also doesn’t want that at all. Time and time again, he wonders what would happen if he tugged Shane aside, pulled his head down, kissed him longer and harder than that peck in the photo booth. But then he imagines how Shane could pull away, could smile at Ryan sadly and shake his head, and Ryan can’t do it. He can’t deal with that rejection, can’t deal with the fact that he could mess this entire friendship up just because he caught some feelings he’s not even completely sure about.

No, he decides. He won’t do anything. He owes it to Shane to not fuck this up. Hell, he already owes Shane for agreeing to be Ryan’s fake boyfriend in the first place. Ryan won’t take that for granted, and he won’t make things awkward or complicated.

Shane is one of the best people Ryan has ever met, and Ryan won’t let himself lose him.

* * *

For some reason, someone decided that everyone had to wear costumes to this year’s holiday party.

It’s Wednesday, and the party is on Friday, and the whole office is buzzing. Somehow, the costumes have become a thing. People are actually putting effort into what they’re going to wear, and they’re being secretive about it. Ryan supposes he could appreciate the excitement, maybe even join in, if he wasn’t worrying so much about what _he_ is going to wear. Or rather, what he and Shane are going to wear, because it has become an unspoken rule that all couples going to the costume party should (read: must) match their costumes.

Up until this point, Ryan has successfully been burying himself in work and avoiding thinking about the holiday party at all. It’s the afternoon and he’s sitting at his desk, Shane beside him, both of them working on scripts – Ryan’s for Unsolved, Shane’s for Ruining History. It’s been a pretty peaceful day, all things considered, but when Shane exits his document and swivels his chair to face Ryan, Ryan knows that peace is about to come to an end.

“What’s up?” he asks, pulling his headphones off his ears.

“The holiday party,” is all Shane says.

“Right,” Ryan nods. “Yup. Costumes.”

“Matching costumes,” Shane specifies.

Ryan nods. They sit there in silence for a moment.

“Any ideas – ?”

“Nope,” Shane says, before Ryan can even finish.

“Right,” Ryan nods again. They stare at each other. Finally, Ryan gestures towards the computer. “We should – ”

“Yep,” Shane agrees, and they both swivel their chairs back around and start typing into Google.

After two minutes, Ryan is seriously regretting everything, because costumes on Google Images are horrible.

“Elves!” Shane exclaims. “We should be elves.”

Ryan glances over, takes one look at the weird, furry, curved-up toes of the elf’s shoes, and says, “No.”

“But the shoes!” Shane points at them. “Man, they look like they could be really comfy slippers.”

“No! No shoes. The shoes are the whole reason I said no to that in the first place.”

“Oh,” Shane says, looking knocked down for a second, but he quickly brightens. “Does that mean we can be elves if we just wear normal shoes?”

Ryan sighs. He can see it now – the moment he and Shane would walk into the party, he would be bombarded for the whole evening by people teasing him for being elf-sized, and Shane would come to his defence, mostly because he’d be offended that people thought he _wasn’t_ elf-sized.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, it could be pretty funny. But he still shakes his head and repeats, “No.”

“You’re no fun,” Shane grumbles as he starts typing away at his keyboard. “We could have been the best elves ever. We’d be so popular, Santa would give us a raise.”

“What are elves even paid with?” Ryan wonders absently, still scrolling through images. “Candy canes?”

“What could they buy with candy canes?” Shane asks, sounding honestly incredulous. “Don’t be silly, Ryan, they’re obviously paid in cold, hard cash.”

“I wonder if we really have to go in matching costumes,” Ryan muses. He’s really having no luck finding any matching costumes for guys that actually look good and easy to make. “Is it really that big of a – ”

“Oh, my,” Shane says suddenly, leaning away from his screen.

“What?” Ryan glances over, and his eyes widen. Shane has Googled ‘gay partner party costumes’, presumably because he was having as little luck as Ryan was when he was just aimlessly searching for ‘men matching costumes’. He’s clicked on one image to enlarge it, and it sits in the middle of the screen proudly: a man dressed as Batman and a man dressed as Robin, both of them facing side-on to the camera with their tongues visibly in each other’s mouths.

“Oh,” Ryan says, momentarily caught up in staring. He glances over and sees Shane looking mesmerised, his lips parted. Ryan raises an eyebrow at him.

“You’re a bit turned on, aren’t you,” he says, not even needing to guess.

“Uh…” Shane stutters.

“Nope,” Ryan shakes his head. “We’re not going as Batman and Robin, that’s too weird.”

“What? Come on,” Shane protests. “We could do – ”

“We could do what? Do that?” Ryan asks, nodding his head towards the image still on Shane’s screen, and Shane blushes.  

“Well,” he stammers, embarrassed. “Well, of course not.”

Ryan narrows his eyes at him, though his stomach, turning flips, belies his casual behaviour.

“No,” he says, squashing all further discussion about it, as well as all further thinking about it in his mind.

He does type in the same search Shane did, though, and scrolls through the images. When he comes across it, he grins.

“Got it,” he tells Shane, clicking on the image.

“Let me see,” Shane says, and rolls his chair closer, leans over Ryan’s shoulder to see the screen – and then squawks, “We’re not dressing like that!”

The picture is of two guys dressed as Mario and Luigi - the sexy version. Both of them are very well-muscled, and their red and green t-shirts are stretched thin across their chests. One of them wears tight black leather pants, while the other wears tight leather shorts and suspenders; both of them have got their hips cocked, posing, staring seductively at the camera.

Ryan’s not gonna lie, his mouth goes a bit dry looking at it.

“There’s no way,” Shane is saying, shaking his head. He’s leaning his chin on Ryan’s shoulder so it moves back and forth across Ryan’s shirt, and Ryan desperately tries to ignore the fact that Shane is so close to him, pressed against his left arm, breathing in Ryan’s ear.

“Oh come on!” Ryan laughs, “We could totally pull that off!”

“Oh please,” Shane scoffs. “You probably could, with your big gym arms, but me? Nah. No thank you.”

It’s stupid, but a little thrill runs up Ryan’s spine when he hears Shane talk about his ‘big gym arms’ – mostly because in saying that, Shane implies that he’s been looking at said arms, and has acknowledged, to some degree, that they are big. Ryan’s not vain, but he does try to keep a decent amount of muscle on his arms; sometimes, he measures the diameter of his biceps and tracks his gains, watches as his shoulders fill out.

…Okay, so maybe he is a bit vain. The point is, Shane has noticed the muscle on his arms and doesn’t seem totally repulsed by it. Right? God, he sounds like a silly teenager, he needs to stop.

Shane is trying to reach over to Ryan’s mouse and scroll past the image, but Ryan stops him before he can, knocking his hand away.

“Okay, okay, we don’t have to dress like they do,” he concedes, as though he really did want them to dress up like a slutty Mario and Luigi. “But this is a great idea, right? All we need is t-shirts, jeans, suspenders, and hats. It’s easy, and we’ll match.”

“Fine,” Shane says begrudgingly, pulling away from his perch on Ryan’s shoulder. “I did want to be an elf though.”

“There there,” Ryan reaches out and pats Shane’s shoulder superficially. But Shane is sitting closer than Ryan expected, and rather than patting the outside of Shane’s shoulder, his hand lands much closer to Shane’s neck. Ryan’s fingers brush against the area where neck and shoulder meet – the same area where Ryan had previously imagined, in his godforsaken fantasies, Shane touching him, kissing him, sucking a mark that would linger for days.

He lifts his eyes to meet Shane’s and sees Shane staring right at him; he looks back down and realises that his hand is no longer patting, but just resting on Shane’s shoulder. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s yanking his hand away lightning-fast, bringing it close to his chest and refusing to meet Shane’s eyes.

“Right, so, Mario and Luigi,” he says brusquely, looking at his computer screen. Next to him, he swears he hears Shane let out a soft sigh before he sits up straight in his chair.

“Who’s going to be who?” he asks.

“Luigi’s taller, right?” Ryan asks. Shane nods. “Then you’ve got to be Luigi.”

“Good thing I have a green t-shirt,” Shane remarks.

“Good thing I have a red t-shirt,” Ryan parrots back.

They both chance a look at each other. Shane’s lip quirks up, a small smile.

“That works out well, then,” he says, and even though he’s still unsteady, Ryan lifts the corners of his lips in return.

* * *

Ryan and Shane don’t share an Uber to the holiday party.

At first, Ryan wonders if this was really a good idea. When he sees Shane getting out of his Uber, however, Ryan decides then and there that it was _definitely_ a good thing they’d travelled separately, because if they had been together, he would have spent the entire car ride trying not to drool onto his lap.

Shane looks… incredible. Ryan watches as he shuts the car door and straightens up, glancing around for Ryan, presumably. He’s wearing black jeans that look like they’ve been sprayed on, and they make his legs look like they stretch on for miles. His bright, Luigi-green t-shirt clings to his chest in all the right places, and it matches the green Luigi hat on his head. But what strikes Ryan the most - what has him gaping like a fish, unable to look away - is the suspenders. The black suspenders that stretch up either side of Shane’s chest, looping over his shoulders and down his back. Perhaps it’s their resemblance to lingerie - the whole idea of framing the body, holding it in, the seductiveness of keeping certain parts under wraps. Either way, they have Ryan drooling, knowing that he’s staring at Shane but not bothering to stop because he can’t.

Shane spots him then, and walks on over to where Ryan’s waiting near the entrance of the bar where the holiday party is being held.

“Hi,” Shane smiles as he nears him, and it’s a big, brilliant, blinding thing. Ryan is physically unable to stop himself from smiling when he sees Shane smile.

God, he’s in over his head.

“Hey,” he responds. And, because he can’t help himself, he says, “You look good.”

“Thanks, man,” Shane says. He’s still smiling. “You do, too.”

Ryan’s dressed similarly to Shane - tight black jeans, tight red shirt, black suspenders - and if he does say so himself, he doesn’t look half bad.

They stand there, grinning at each other, and Ryan takes a sudden leap of faith.

“Shall we?” he asks, as he grabs Shane’s hand and threads their fingers together.

Shane blinks down at their joined hands, but he doesn’t stop smiling, so Ryan counts it for a win. “We shall,” Shane declares, and together, they walk inside.

The bar is nothing like what Ryan expected for a work holiday party. It’s a big bar, but there are no big open spaces, nor is there only one bar top; rather, it’s a maze of small rooms, nooks and crannies, with a couple of bar tops spread around where the rooms open up a bit more. There are big, open windows cut everywhere in the walls; but there are also potted trees everywhere, providing cover and privacy.

What’s really cool about the place is that it’s been decorated, Christmas-style. The lights of the bar have been dimmed in favour of the fairy lights which are everywhere, in all different colours, strung up overhead and across walls and spiralling around support beams. Baubles and tinsel adorn the plants, the furniture, even the bar tops. It’s a space that should feel moody, but with the decorations, it’s like the entire place has been injected with a cheery Christmas spirit. 

“Woah,” Shane says, and Ryan has to agree, because this place is awesome.

Their instructions were to walk to the back of the bar, but Ryan honestly has no idea where they’re going. Eventually, though, he spots a few Buzzfeed camera operators that he knows, and soon enough they’re surrounded by familiar faces.

And that’s when the squealing begins.

“My boys! My beautiful boys came as Mario and Luigi! I cannot believe this.” Jen turns around and yells, “Come look at Shane and Ryan!”

Everyone in the vicinity turns to look at them, and Ryan sighs, because really, how could he not have expected this?

“Hi, Jen,” he says resignedly, though there’s a fond smile playing at the edge of his lips, even as they become swarmed by others.

“Oh my God!” Ashly gushes. “You guys are just so adorable.”

“Guys! Mario and Luigi! That is such a good idea,” Steven exclaims, in his usual overexcited, way-too-positive manner. Ryan sometimes wonders if anything can ever bring Steven down.

“You know,” Sara says, sauntering up to them and cocking her head to one side. “I had my doubts, but you both have actually pulled this look off pretty well. Good job.”

Her eyes drop down to where Shane and Ryan’s hands are still clasped together, and then they dart back up again to look at Shane. Ryan sees Shane roll his eyes, but he doesn’t ask what’s going on, because he’s too busy looking at Shane accusingly.

 “You told her our costume idea?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “I thought it was supposed to be secret!”

“I – uh – ” Shane glances around, looking for an excuse; but they’re surrounded by people, and everything’s a bit too crazy, so he just shrugs his shoulders instead. “I’m gonna get a drink.”

Ryan grins at him, because it’s nice to know that he isn’t the only one feeling overwhelmed, here.

“What do you want?” Shane asks, shuffling off to the side.

“I don’t care, just make sure it’s strong,” Ryan tells him, and Shane huffs out a laugh.

Before Ryan knows what’s happening, he’s being pulled off into all directions. Jen shows him off to anyone and everyone, excited to be telling people about how Shane and Ryan came here together. Ryan is happy to just sit back and let everyone else talk for once, smiling in relief when the conversation turns away from him and Shane, listening when Ashly talks about how her show’s doing really well, nodding along as Steven gives him a rundown of all the ideas he has for Worth It that he hasn’t been able to do yet.

Finally, Shane returns, and Ryan accepts his drink gratefully. It’s a small glass that looks like straight up bourbon and Ryan doesn’t know how, but Shane managed to pick the one drink Ryan would have chosen for himself in this situation.

“Thanks,” he smiles at Shane, and they both take a long sip of their drinks.

“Oh my God,” Jen gasps suddenly. She points at something above their heads. “Guys!”

Ryan furrows his brow, confused, but glances up above. He nearly groans when he sees it, dangling down between rows of fairy lights: mistletoe.

Everyone around them, of course, immediately erupts into noise. Jen and Ashly let out little squeals; Steven says “Guys!” really excitedly and just points at it; Sara raises an eyebrow and says, “Well, this will be interesting.”

“Are you kidding me?” Shane is saying, shaking his head at the mistletoe. “This is… unbelievable. I cannot believe how corny this is right now.”

Quietly, Ryan can’t believe it either. He’s tried so hard to keep distance between him and Shane, to remind himself that this is only pretend, but it seems as though the universe is taking every opportunity to push them together.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do it then,” Ryan says, mostly just to tease everyone around them, though his heart is racing in his chest. “You know, we don’t want to conform to the corniness.”

But Jen narrows her eyes at them and says, menacingly, “Don’t you dare,” so unfortunately they don’t really have a choice. Unless he feels like disappointing Jen, which he never does, because Jen is an angel and also scary.

Ryan turns to face Shane properly, looking up at him. Although there’s adrenaline pumping through him, his heart beating fast, he’s actually far less nervous than he was that time in the photo booth. Last time, he had no idea what to do; this time, he feels confident in just giving Shane a similar peck and getting it over with. All in good jest, the Christmas spirit, etcetera etcetera.

But Shane has other ideas, apparently, and Ryan doesn’t see it coming when Shane puts his drink down on a nearby table, frames Ryan’s face with both his hands, and draws him in for a long kiss.

The intensity of it surprises him – it’s absolutely nothing like that brush of lips in the photo booth. The kiss is firm, directed, and it makes Ryan gasp against Shane’s lips. And then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, his stomach starts flipping over excitedly when Shane takes that opportunity to slip his tongue in Ryan’s mouth.

Around him, he can hear cheers and whistles growing louder and louder as the kiss goes on, but all he can focus on – all he _wants_ to focus on – is the feeling of Shane up against him, holding him in place while he slides his tongue against Ryan’s. It feels incredible, and Ryan’s brain is shorting out, because how can it be this good?

Just before it goes on too long, just before it strays into obscene territory, Shane pulls away. He stands there, hands still on Ryan’s face, staring into his eyes. For a moment, Ryan feels his breath leave him as Shane watches him with an expression he’s never used before: he’s looking at Ryan with sheer, unhidden want. Ryan nearly gasps again, but then Shane is pulling back, pulling his hands away; around them, there is cheering and wolf whistling, people are jostling their shoulders teasingly, and on the outside, at least, everything seems fine and jovial.

The inside, however, is a different story, and Ryan spends the whole evening on edge.

Just like at the premiere, he and Shane don’t spend the whole night together. As Shane turns back around to grab his drink again, Ryan takes a long gulp of his own and finds himself being dragged away once more. He has conversations with Jen and Ashly, and with other directors and producers and camera crew. He even talks to a couple of the higher-ups, the important guys that coordinate everything and control the budget.

He doesn’t talk to anyone for too long, though. That would require an attention span, and right now, Ryan’s attention span has gone to shit. Every few minutes he finds his eyes drifting across the room, scanning for Shane. The warm, tingly sensation that was lit in his belly with that searing kiss has failed to disappear, and it distracts him, keeps reminding him of how it felt to be kissing Shane properly.

The evening wears on, and Ryan knows he is being obvious, but he doesn’t care. Shane catches him staring more than once, and Ryan always glances away too late. The tension between them is palpable, and Ryan can feel it bubbling, boiling, and he wonders what will happen when it bursts.

It happens later in the evening. Ryan’s standing in a corner, nursing one of the many drinks he’s had this evening and is, for once, on his own. He’s taking the opportunity to look for Shane again – how many times has he done that over the past three hours? – and when he finds him, he feels a jolt of shock run through his body.

Shane is looking right back at him.

Ryan’s about to glance away, but he stops. The fire in his belly is blazing and his skin feels hypersensitive with want. He _knows_ that Shane wants him, saw it in his face after that kiss, and Ryan _wants_. In that moment, all his previous arguments about preserving their friendship go flying out the window with the knowledge that Shane is here and warm and willing.

So instead of looking away like he should, Ryan keeps eye contact with Shane and slowly, purposefully, raises one eyebrow in a challenge.

He sees the moment Shane snaps. His back straightens, he places his drink down carefully, and never once takes his eyes off of Ryan as he starts walking over. Knowing that Shane will follow, Ryan turns and heads away from where his colleagues are mingling and into the maze, rounding corners until he finds a dark, quiet corner. It’s partially obscured from view by tall potted trees, but that doesn’t stop Ryan from tracking Shane’s path towards him, and before he knows it Shane is here, in front of him, away from people and distractions and logic.

“You’ve been staring at me all evening,” Shane murmurs. He’s crowding Ryan in, getting in his personal space, and his smile is so smug Ryan wonders if he won’t choke on it.

“No I haven’t,” he retorts, but he’s staring at Shane with half-lidded eyes as he says it, so it kind of defeats the point.

“You’re staring at me right now,” Shane points out. God, their height difference is so obvious when they’re like this, standing almost chest to chest. Shane looms over him, close enough that Ryan can feel warm breath on his cheek.

“So what?” Ryan says lowly. The world may feel like it’s spinning around him, but Shane is completely in focus. “What are you going to do about it?”

Shane just looks at him, smoldering, and Ryan stares back. He feels that line of tension between them stretching thin, trembling with strain of their intensity.

Then Ryan drops his gaze to Shane’s lips.

“Fuck it,” Shane says harshly, and pulls Ryan into a searing kiss.

It’s warm and wet and hot and perfect. Ryan gasps, almost straight away, and Shane pulls the same trick as he did earlier in the evening and licks his way into Ryan’s open mouth.

Ryan quickly learns that their kiss earlier had only been a taste of what Shane was hiding. With all the time in the world to themselves, Shane is much more thorough: his kisses are slow and deliberate, and punishingly thorough. It’s a game of push and pull between them. Shane uses a hand on the back of Ryan’s neck to tilt his head, and Ryan goes weak in the knees at the thought of Shane positioning him just as he wants. Ryan gets his own back by sucking on Shane’s tongue, and relishes in the victory when Shane inhales loudly through his nose and grips Ryan’s shoulder like a vice.

At some point Shane pulls away and leads his kisses down the side of Ryan’s neck.

“Oh, fuck,” Ryan breathes out harshly. The imprints of Shane’s lips feel like they’re being branded into his skin. “Fuck, what are we doing?”

“Making some really bad decisions,” Shane growls out, and when he lifts his head back up, Ryan grabs his suspenders and yanks him back down into another kiss.

There are two hot hands on Ryan’s waist, pushing him so that his back is flat against the wall. Ryan hums approvingly into Shane’s mouth and lets his hands slide down Shane’s chest and around to his ass, pulling him in so that their bodies are pressed tightly together.

“Jesus,” Shane breaks away, panting.

“Nope, it’s Ryan,” Ryan says cockily, winking at him. Shane retaliates by moving his own hand over Ryan’s ass and down further, so that he can lift up Ryan’s leg. With a hand under Ryan’s knee Shane surges against him, capturing Ryan’s lips as he grinds their hips together. 

Ryan moans, _loudly_ , moans into Shane’s mouth and knows that Shane can feel the vibrations from it all down his spine. He can’t believe they’re doing this. He can’t believe they’re doing this here, of all places, at a fucking Buzzfeed holiday party –

Suddenly, his blood runs cold as he remembers his workplace. The place where he and Shane work. The place where they became good friends, worked on so many projects together – and still continue to work together.

Has Ryan had too much to drink? Fuck, what is he thinking? Suddenly, sickeningly, the world isn’t making as much sense.

“Fuck, stop,” Ryan pulls away, trying to catch his breath. “Shit, we can’t do this, we can’t – ”

He pushes Shane away.

“It’s – we have a show together,” Ryan says. “Technically two shows. We can’t – we can’t jeopardize that.”

Shane is staring at him with an inscrutable expression. Ryan can’t tell what he’s thinking. Ryan can’t even tell what he himself is thinking. They make quite a picture: both of them panting through red, swollen lips, hair dishevelled, standing barely a hand’s width away from each other in the corner of a dark bar. Everything seems like it’s spinning; Ryan has no idea what’s going on.

Finally, the expression on Shane’s face disappears, replaced with a blank stare. He straightens up, looks directly into Ryan’s eyes, and says: “You know what? Fuck you, Ryan Bergara.”

And then he walks away.

There’s too many people talking. It’s too loud. Ryan feels as though a great big tsunami has sprung up from the ocean and knocked him flat, and there’s nothing he can do to escape it.

“Fuck,” he says, banging his head back against the wall. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I TOTALLY just used the mistletoe trope and I am UNASHAMED. So there. 
> 
> Fun fact! If you actually put ‘gay partner party costume’ into Google Images, all those pictures come up! Have fun perusing, friends. 
> 
> So uhhh this totally turned into a monster - was definitely not expecting it to be this long - but it just wanted to be written, so who was I to refuse. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! 
> 
> Updates Wednesdays! ♥


	3. Misunderstandings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan comes to the realisation that he's an asshole.

The walls of Ryan’s apartment are bare.

When Helen lived with him, it had been different. There used to be things all over the walls – inspirational quotes and wall hangings and artwork, some of which she had bought, but most of which she had made from thrift store bargains and craft shop supplies (because she was creative and adventurous and a fucking badass when it came to finding a good deal).

But mostly, the walls had been covered in photos. Photos of Helen, photos of Ryan, photos of Helen and Ryan, photos of their families and their friends and Helen’s dog. Sometimes they were put in nice frames that Helen had thrifted and spray painted white or a nice matte black; other times they were propped up on dressing tables and nightstands and the kitchen counter, with Helen promising that next weekend she’d sort them out, buy a couple of frames, put them up in that spare patch of wall between the toilet and the bathroom.

When she moved out, there had been a lot of photos waiting to be put up, and they all left with her.

Now, Ryan sits in his apartment with his bare walls and doesn’t dare to think too much. He doesn’t think about Friday night. He doesn’t think about making out with Shane. He definitely doesn’t think about the look in Shane’s eyes after Ryan had pushed him away, that mixture of hurt and anger that makes Ryan feel physically sick whenever he sees it again in his mind.

Instead, Ryan reasons with himself. He tells himself that he was right to turn Shane away. He was saving them both, really. A change in their friendship could have affected the show, and if the show didn’t run smoothly, if it didn’t do well, then the show would be no more. Unsolved is Ryan’s baby. It’s been his labor of love for the past couple of years now, the one thing in his life that he’s most proud of. And he can admit that now, it’s a little bit Shane’s baby too. All the more reason for Ryan to ensure that the show stays the same, that he and Shane stay the same. For the sake of the show.

Above all, what Ryan doesn’t think about is the one patch of wall in his apartment that isn’t bare. The wall space above his couch that, since last weekend, is now covered in photos, clipped to long pieces of string that stretch across the wall. Ryan doesn’t think about how many of those photos feature Shane; he already knows it’s a lot, too much for just friends. He pretends not to feel those eyes burning into the back of his head while he spends the entire weekend trying and failing to convince himself that he isn’t a complete asshole.

* * *

 

By Monday, he’s pretty much convinced himself that everything is fine. What happened on Friday was a fever dream. An alcohol-induced escapade that will not be repeated again. There’s only one more episode of Unsolved to be released, only two more Postmortems to be filmed, and only a week and a half left in the office. Ryan can’t wait to be done with it all. He needs to get away for a while. He needs to forget that Friday ever happened.

Los Angeles grows colder as Christmas approaches. Ryan finds himself cursing as he hurries across the basement carpark towards the office elevator, despising the fact that he can see his warm breath steaming in front of him. But the temperature in the basement is practically warm compared to the chilly welcome Ryan receives when he approaches his and Shane’s desks.

Shane’s desk is… bare. Usually Ryan wouldn’t notice because of Shane’s extreme organisation, but this is different. His pens are gone. His notebooks. His headphones. Everything Shane needs to work is not at his desk, which means that Shane is not going to be working at his desk. He’s not going to be working next to Ryan.

Something twists in his gut, low and uncomfortable.

He puts away his backpack and heads to the Monday staff meeting. It’s a compulsory weekly check-in for everyone at the office, and no matter how many people he needs to talk to or who he’s working with at that time, Shane always makes a point of sitting next to Ryan.

Not today.

Shane’s sitting at the far end of the table, next to Sara. There are no available seats anywhere – indeed, the whole room is almost full, standing room included. There’s no way for Ryan to make a path towards Shane’s end of the room, let alone find a seat next to him.

Ryan resolves himself to spending the whole meeting standing up near the door. He doesn’t pay attention to a word anyone says, and spends the entire time trying to catch Shane’s eye.

Shane doesn’t acknowledge him at all.

When the meeting ends, Ryan has to leave the room first, otherwise he would be blocking the path. He lingers near the door, though, and keeps a keen eye out for the one person he’s looking for.

“Shane!” Ryan calls out when he sees him. He takes a few steps towards him. “Hey, man, can we talk –”

“Sorry, I’ve got stuff to do,” Shane cuts him off. He barely looks at Ryan before turning and heading away in the opposite direction to their desks, and Ryan feels his resolve begin to falter.

When Tuesday rolls around, Ryan finds himself dreading it. Postmortem episodes are filmed on Tuesdays. Ryan will have to sit in front of the desk, with Shane, and answer the viewer questions while pretending that everything is fine.

He walks into the room and stops briefly, eyes glued to the figure seated at one of the chairs. So, Shane’s already here. He resumes his pacing and rounds the desk, pulling out his chair.

“Hi,” Ryan says tentatively as he sits down.

“Hey,” Shane says absently. He doesn’t offer anything more than that. He’s scrolling through Twitter on his phone.

So, great. It’s Ryan, Shane, a camera operator and a sound guy, all squished into a small, tension-filled room. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Ryan resists the urge to sigh.

Somehow, they make it through filming. It’s definitely awkward, and Ryan can tell that he and Shane are forcing their usually effortless camaraderie. It feels odd. Something so natural between them has become something they have to work to artificially produce. Is this what Ryan was afraid of? Is this why he pushed Shane away at the party? He was trying to avoid this, but somehow they’re here anyway; it doesn’t make sense.

Before he knows it they’re at the end. Shane asks what will be on the next episode, Ryan gives a hint, and then they both sign off. Ryan blinks and suddenly everything’s in motion again: the camera and sound people start packing up, and Shane’s pushing his chair backwards.

“Hey, wait,” Ryan looks up at him, making an aborted movement. “Can we – ”

“Nope,” Shane says, and leaves the room.

And it’s then that Ryan realises that he’s really fucked things up.

* * *

When the next day rolls around, Ryan decides that he finally needs to do something about it.

Pretending that everything is fine was not a great option. He can admit that. It wasn’t smart, it was stupid and cowardly. Ryan just hadn’t expected it to _hurt_ this much.

It’s been two days. Four, if you include the weekend. Hardly any time at all to be apart from someone – especially if that someone is just your coworker. At first, he can’t explain it.

Sure, they do a lot together. They get along well and collaborate on projects which turn out to be pretty fucking fantastic. Sometimes, they go on day trips to Disneyland or go out for dinner. More often than not, they go out for lunch or for coffee, or to concerts of artists they both like. They… go everywhere, Ryan thinks, and his inner monologue trails off at _that_ realisation.

Suddenly, he finds that the pain in his chest is all too easy to explain.

He’s holding his breath as he feels the cogs in his brain working. He might not be the smartest tool in the toolbox, but he’s certainly not the dumbest either, and he can figure it out.

“Shit,” he sighs eventually, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his palms across his face. “Shit, shit, shit.”

The rest of the workday passes in a haze. He finds himself staring dumbly at his screen, unable to really focus on anything he’s doing. He moves through the motions like clockwork, clicking through scripts and scouting ideas and research. None of it registers in his mind. The desk beside him remains empty.

It’s not until late in the afternoon, when people are packing up and leaving, that Ryan is snapped back to reality. The sun is waning in the sky, an early darkness in this first winter month, and it casts awkward streaks of light and shadow across Ryan’s computer screen. Not that he notices much of it.

He does notice, however, when the chair beside him moves.

Ryan’s heart leaps with foolish hope as he jerks his head around to see who it is; but his face quickly falls into confusion as he watches Sara sit down in the chair and roll up beside him.

“Hey, sulky boy,” she says, leaning one elbow nonchalantly against the desk.

Ryan frowns at her, unsure of what’s going on. “What?” he asks.  

“Sulky boy, that’s you,” Sara says matter-of-factly. “You’ve been sitting here, at this desk, sulking for the whole day.”

“No, I haven’t!” Ryan sputters.

Sara tilts her head and stares at him, eyebrow raised. “Okay, sure, so you just intended to spend the entire afternoon frowning at your computer.”

“So what if I did?” Ryan shoots back, instantly on the defensive. But Sara just looks at him, her eyes never breaking from Ryan’s, and eventually he glances away and sighs.

“Sorry,” he admits. “I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry.”

“Well, at least you can say the words,” Sara remarks.

“The words?”

“The words you need to say to Shane,” she tells him.

“Fuck,” Ryan sighs again, equal parts exasperated and resigned. “Are you here to yell at me? Is that what this is?”

Sara’s lips twist into a small smile. “No, dummy. There won't be any yelling.”

“There should be. I deserve it,” Ryan says, rueful. And then, more quietly, “I really fucked up, Sara.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Sara tilts her head to the other side. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Man, I don’t fucking know,” Ryan groans, rubbing his hands over his eyes harshly. “What – why are you even talking to me? Shouldn’t you be taking his side?”

“I was your friend first,” she reminds him, and it’s true. He can still remember it clearly, even though it was so many years ago: his first day on the job, and the first friendly face he’d seen had been Sara’s. Buzzfeed was big and bustling even back then, and it was easy to get lost in the crowd; but Sara saw him straight away, offered him a smile and a wave and a tour of the office, became the person Ryan would turn to when he was finding his feet.

They’d drifted apart since then, though. And then of course the Shane and Sara thing had happened for a while there, their whirlwind relationship which Ryan still knows next to nothing about and he’d like to keep it that way, thanks. It’s not that he didn’t support them – he did, absolutely – but he also never wanted to hear about the details of them being together.

Back then, he had told himself that he didn’t want to know because it was none of his business. But now, he knows better: knows that something in his subconscious hadn’t wanted to hear about Shane in a relationship with someone else – someone else who was stealing Shane’s time away.

The more Ryan thinks about it, the more he’s realising what a monumental idiot he’s been. But Sara is sitting here, open and kind and not yelling, and it makes Ryan think that maybe he can rectify some of his idiocy.

“Okay, friend,” Ryan swallows. “What do I do?”

“What do you want to do?” Sara asks.

He’s tempted to say _I don’t know_ again, but that wouldn’t get him any closer to solving the problem. So instead, he pauses and thinks.

“At first, I thought it would be best to pretend like nothing had ever happened,” he says slowly. “I wanted – fuck, I’m so stupid – I wanted to brush it all off, like nothing had ever happened.”

“And now?” she asks gently.

“I don’t want to brush it off,” he mutters, eyes glued firmly to where his hands are resting in his lap, fingers fiddling against each other anxiously. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Ryan stops and takes a deep, steadying breath before continuing. “Because it made me realise how much I like him. Like, a lot. Like, I really want to spend all my fucking time with him, really, and not just as coworkers who happen to be friends.”

There’s silence. When he finally gathers up the courage Ryan glances up and meets Sara’s eyes. The corners of them are crinkled up into a smile as she watches him.

“Well then, you know what you have to do,” she finally says.

Ryan nods; she’s right.

* * *

Ryan welcomes Thursday with sweaty palms and jittery nerves. He spends the morning with his leg bouncing up and down beneath his desk, a nervous tic he’s never been able to get rid of. He can barely focus on his computer screen – his eyes are constantly scanning the room, watching for any sight of Shane.

He finally appears before lunchtime, sauntering into the office. Ryan’s watching him weave through the aisles of desks, so he sees when Shane’s eyes flick over to his, for just a second, before he realises that Ryan’s looking at him and quickly glances away. Ryan can tell that Shane is going to walk past their desks without a second glance – he needs to take action now.

Pushing his chair back, he stands up and strides across the room, making a beeline for Shane. He catches him just as he reaches the turn-off for the staff kitchen, and reaches out to grab his elbow.

“Shane,” Ryan says urgently, turning him so that they’re face to face. “Can we talk? Please?”

Shane’s face is completely unreadable. He’s quiet for a few moments, just staring at Ryan – perhaps he’s sizing Ryan up? – but before he can decide, Shane’s nodding his head and letting his arm go slack in Ryan’s grip.

He doesn’t say anything as Ryan leads him out of the office and into the elevator. They get off at the foyer, not the basement car park, and Ryan leads them out of the building and down the sidewalk a bit. This is a conversation about _them_ : Ryan and Shane as people, not Ryan and Shane as coworkers at Buzzfeed. Ryan wants to make that distinction clear, and when he chances a glance up at Shane, he thinks that Shane’s starting to get it.

They’re under the shade of a tree, and the sun is out, trying meekly to warm up the cool LA temperatures. The street is nearly empty. There’s no one around. It’s the moment of truth, Ryan thinks to himself.

He’d gone about all of this in the completely wrong way. Now it was time to try and make things right – to do what he should have done the first time around. Shane didn’t have to give him a second chance. Shane didn’t have to give him anything at all, not after how Ryan had treated him. But Ryan hoped, God he hoped, that he would get one.

His heart in his throat, he looks up into Shane’s eyes and says firmly, “I’m sorry.”

Shane doesn’t respond, so Ryan takes that as a signal to continue.

“I’m sorry that I kissed you and then pulled away, and didn’t give us a chance to talk about it. I’m sorry about everything. I acted like a complete asshole, and you didn’t deserve it at all. I never should have asked you to be my pretend boyfriend in the first place.”

There’s a pause as Ryan breathes out lowly, trying to steady himself. Though he yearns to look away, he forces himself to continue to meet Shane’s eyes.

“I’m not sorry about that,” Shane finally says, breaking the silence.

Ryan blinks, taken aback. “What?”

“I’m not sorry about agreeing to be your pretend boyfriend.” Shane is still looking at him with that odd, indiscernible expression.  

“You’re not?” Ryan asks. Shane shakes his head. “Why?”

“Because it meant you could finally let yourself get close to me,” Shane says. “That stupid plot gave you a reason to let down your guard and venture out of your comfort zone. You would never have done or said anything otherwise.” He tilts his head, considering. “Well, maybe in a few years you would have gotten up the nerve, but I wouldn’t wait that long.”

Ryan just stares at him.

“Oh,” he says finally. His brow is furrowed in confusion. “Well, then. I… want to do what I should have done two weeks ago.”

He breathes in deeply, audibly, and focuses on those deep brown eyes. “Shane,” he starts, willing his voice to not tremble. “Can we – I mean, would you like to go out with me tomorrow night? For dinner? Not like going for dinner like we sometimes do. A date dinner.”

He shuts his mouth before he can ramble on for any longer. He swears he has much better game than this, usually, but he finds that he’s so nervous about what Shane will say that all attempts at acting cool have been completely thrown out the window.

That might be for the best, though. Honesty is the best policy, no matter how corny or nerve-wracking it might be. Even if Shane turns him down now without a thought, Ryan will still be glad that Shane knows exactly how he feels.

He watches as Shane’s eyes widen slightly, taking in Ryan with a calculated expression. It seems like an eternity before he replies, time stretched out into agonising milliseconds that last for hours.

But then Shane opens his mouth and says, “You’re an idiot, Ryan Bergara.”

Later, Ryan will swear that he physically felt his heart stop beating for a few seconds. This is it, he thinks – this is what he’s dreaded – Shane is turning him away.

“Jesus Christ, don’t look like that,” Shane tells him quickly. “Yes, I’ll come to dinner with you.”   

And just like that, Ryan’s heart starts beating again.

“Okay,” Ryan breathes out. “Okay. Good. I mean – yeah. That’s good.”

Shane narrows his eyes at him, and Ryan swears, _swears_ that he sees the corner of his mouth tilt up slightly. But all he does is nod at Ryan and say, “See you tomorrow.”

And with that, he turns and heads back to the office.

Ryan watches him walk away. He can't believe that just happened. He's going on a _date_ with _Shane_. And although he’s nervous as fuck, he also can’t stop the excited thrill that skates up through his stomach.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear friends, I apologise that my update schedule went completely awry. I've had some new and exciting things going on in my life, and I hit a complete block with this chapter. But I've fought through it and come out with a chapter I'm pretty happy with. 
> 
> One more chapter to go. It is shaping up to be significantly longer than this one - I'm so excited to get it out to you. 
> 
> Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and rating will be updated as the story progresses. 
> 
> Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated! Also, come say hi to me on tumblr: vviolia.tumblr.com
> 
> Updates Wednesdays! ♥


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